


Permanent Press

by Mizufae



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Community: kinkme_merlin, Laundry, M/M, Reincarnation, Small Towns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-09
Updated: 2012-12-09
Packaged: 2017-11-20 17:11:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/587775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mizufae/pseuds/Mizufae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How the primary branch office of Pendergast Conglomerated International came to be located in Earldin Village (pop. 600).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Permanent Press

**Author's Note:**

> This is a repost of a fic originally posted on Kinkme_Merlin here:  
> http://kinkme-merlin.livejournal.com/21103.html?thread=21516655#t21516655
> 
> The prompt was "Meeting your great love at the laundromat."
> 
> Beta'd by the copacetic _grainne_ who put up with notes twice as long as the actual fic, and tangents on Arthur's red y-fronts.
> 
> There is a sort of not really well kinda sequel type thing set in this universe done in a weird meme style (the Meme of Domesticity) on my tumblr here: <http://mizufae.tumblr.com/post/14530522291/the-meme-of-domesticity> if you're interested. It's almost 2.5k!

  
Permanent Press

_How the primary branch office of Pendergast Conglomerated International came to be located in Earldin Village (pop. 600)._

The 24 hour launderette was less a proper sort of place where one took enormous quilts for commercial capacity dryers and more a dimly lit annex to the side of a convenience store. The trio of washers and dryers, now yellowed with age, trundled away in the green fluorescence.

Along the wall opposite the machines was a line of molded plastic chairs in timeless shades of burnt orange and avocado green. A folding table filled the narrow end across from the door. Plastered behind the chairs were numerous handmade signs for use and care of the facilities, created over the years in an historical recount of typographic technological advancement.

“Welcome to Sunshine Launderette! Where It’s Laundry Day Every Day!” shouted hand-cut letters in faded construction paper. Peace signs and paisleys were sprinkled around the words.

Arthur eyed the sign proclaiming “DON’T BUG US IF YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO USE BLEACH – IT’S NOT OUR FAULT YOUR MUM NEVER TAUGHT YOU RIGHT” in blocky, dot matrix style capitals, the perforated edges of the printer paper still clinging on for dear life.

It wasn’t like he had had a mum to teach him how to use bleach. How presumptuous.

He had half a mind to turn around right then and take his laundry somewhere else, except it was 3am on maybe the longest, worst day of his life and if he didn’t have clean underpants by dawn he considered it a very real possibility that he might sob openly on the streets.

Arthur did not sob. He got things done.

Like taking business trips for his father’s ill-conceived notion of scouting for branch locations in tiny, back-water villages on the edges of civilization. Business trips that are surprise tacked on at the end of whirlwind European tours meant for celebrating romance with the love of his life who leaves him mid-France for some swarthy Doctor Without Borders he had once called a friend. European tours with ridiculously overbooked flights so he gets deposited by bus in – where was this place anyway – Earldin, something – after midnight so apparently the entire village is closed for business and taxis. Villages that have cottages instead of hotels, cottages across rivers with bridges that don’t have reasonable safety rails so very expensive Burberry suitcases go tumbling, horribly and slow-motion, into rushing, freezing water and knock about on the rocks 10 yards away. Rocks that a jet-lagged Arthur slips and falls on in the dark, breaking the skin on his knees but more importantly the fabric of his designer trousers.

With a heave, Arthur thumped his waterlogged suitcase onto the folding table and warily unzipped. He expected a frog to leap out; it was just that sort of day.

The sullen, sleepy man who had grunted welcome at the cottage had taken a good look and snorted derisively. “We dry on the line, here. Sunlight and clean country air.” As though the mere idea of a dryer offended him.

Arthur, bloodied and too tired even to consider the illogic of his actions, had showered, grimaced as he put his sodden, torn, travel-weary clothes back on, and left with the man’s hastily scribbled directions to Sunshine Launderette clutched in his hand. “You’ll be needing a torch. We haven’t got streetlamps for part of the walk.” Arthur’s suitcase had squeaked in objection the whole way down the cobblestone roads.

A charming sign in Cooper Black read: “For Best Results, Sort Into Reds, Darks, Whites, And Delicates.” Each word was appropriately hued, and somebody, a child perhaps, had helpfully illustrated below with crayon. The “delicates” involved something that maybe looked like a bra, and maybe looked like a pair of dinner plates with bows on. 

The overnight clerk of Sunshine General hadn’t been so endowed as to need dinner plates, or even saucers. He had, in fact, given Arthur the strangest look when making change for the machines, and the stare had burned into the back of Arthur’s neck on the way out the door. Arthur had no idea why. Making change for a pack of cigarettes wasn’t exactly out of the ordinary. The man had stared at his ID a bit too long, too. Arthur knew he looked young for his age, and normally preened a bit just thinking about it, but he certainly didn’t look 18, and this didn’t seem the type of store to demand ID anyway.

With a great, heaving sigh only those among the personally put-upon can express, Arthur surveyed his frog-free, utterly soaked packing. God knew what sort of filth was in that river. Clean country things, no doubt.

Thinking unnecessarily violent thoughts about the cottage proprietor, Arthur divided his clothes into reds and darks. He didn’t have delicates, and whites were just asking for trouble. The red pile took 2 of the washers, the darks only 1. He hesitated on his bespoke, dry clean only navy pinstripe with real horn buttons, but the soggy stench of weedy river detritus rose up his nose and he figured, as long as he washed cold and dried on cool it would be safe. He carefully lined up pound coins, pressed in the metal tray, and startled at the loud CH-THUNK. It shattered through the hushed village night.

All three machines whirred away as Arthur slipped out the door and leaned against the rough brick wall. The stars were bright, and a cool breeze blew past. He sheltered his cigarette with a hand as he lit it from the new, dry, book of matches he’d had to ask the clerk for.

Benson & Hedges, the antithesis of all the tragically continental fags he’d had to sneak in the past two months. Jennifer hadn’t approved of his habit. Neither had Lance, med school graduate and ex-friend. Well, they could cry at his funeral brought on by lung cancer. Except, as soon as he was back home he was scheduling a meeting with the family lawyers. He would specify in his will that Jennifer and Lance weren’t allowed to attend. He pictured with distinct clarity the two of them, swathed in black, rending their garments, clawing at the glass doors of the church. Haha! That would show them. Arthur sucked down his cigarette, blew out the smoke, and breathed it back in through his nose with nostril-flaring vehemence.

Halfway through a chest-wracking cough to which Arthur would never admit, it began to rain. It rained suddenly and without warning, the stars gone in a blink from the sky and the downpour filling the gutters along the ancient sidewalk.

Whoever had named the store Sunshine General had been lying through their teeth. Arthur considered the story of Greenland, and rushed back into the tiny laundry room, his cigarette dropped into the gutter and already washed down the High Street.

He hunkered in an orange chair and stared down the pinkly churning suds inside the center washing machine. One of the fluorescent bulbs was dying; it buzzed at a frequency just low enough for Arthur to consider maddening. He stood up, paced the length of the room. Contemplated the idea of smoking inside, regardless of the “SMOKE IN HERE AND WE’LL STEAL ONE OF EACH SOCK” declaration, set cheerfully in Party LET, on the wall above the leftmost avocado green chair.

Just as he reached for the pack in his back pocket, the door creaked open and a large black umbrella shoved its way in. Beneath the umbrella was the clerk from the main store, who still gave Arthur strange, googly eyes. Had he been spying? Was there a hidden camera? Could they possibly be so obsessive about no smoking policies?

“Er. ‘Lo.” The clerk appeared to be biting the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. Arthur thought about the undoubtedly rusted penknife in the front pocket of his suitcase.

“Is there a problem?” Arthur asked cautiously.

The clerk shook his head, rubbed the back of his neck, busied himself with closing the umbrella and making a big puddle in the corner of the hideous linoleum floor. “Not a problem, no, I just thought you probably might need this?” He proffered the umbrella oddly, the tip resting on a wrist and the handle in a tight grasp. 

Maybe not everyone in Earldin was a complete dimwit. Maybe the clerk just gave Arthur the googly eyes because he looked like a complete wreck and it was 3am. “Oh, I.” There were always manners to fall back on in cases like these. His father had ensured he knew them well. “Arthur Pendergast, so pleased to meet you.” He reached out a hand. “I assure you, I don’t make a habit of walking around like this, it’s only that today has been quite trying and I was told your facilities were available at this hour and I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”

His hand hovered, un-grasped, in midair. The clerk was eyeing it. Arthur reached out, took the umbrella by its middle.

“Thank you, this is kind. To whom may I return it tomorrow?”

The clerk mumbled something under his breath, seemingly uncomfortable all of a sudden with meeting Arthur’s eyes. He was blushing, too, all the way up to the tips of his protuberant ears, and fidgeting like mad. Maybe he was an idiot, after all. A generous idiot, but nonetheless…

“Sorry, didn’t catch that. I’m here on business, I’ll be here a few days but I would hate not to be able to find you again…”

At that the clerk stilled, seeming to resolve something. Arthur steeled himself for the possibility of defending from a madman with his just-offered umbrella. Luckily the only thing the madman did was thrust out his own – left – hand, and look Arthur in the eyes again. He reached out, slowly, to shake it and the clerk said, “You can call me Merlin.”

Oh.

Something sizzled like carbonation between their palms and fizzed straight into Arthur’s brain and heart and lungs, and his suddenly dry, wrinkled clothing filled with static electricity, clinging and crackling all over his body like Arthur had never heard of fabric softener in his life. That was absurd, of course, because Arthur had always been very concerned with fabric softener but he found he was also, quite rapidly, concerned with things like grain levies and jousting and stuffed pheasant pie.

And magic, of course, he was highly concerned with magic and more specifically, Merlin, who stepped out of memory and stood there in corduroy trousers and a faded blue jumper, who was still holding Arthur’s hand and not shaking it at all. The umbrella had fallen to the floor, forgotten. Merlin’s googly eyes were very much not googly, more smoldering with rakish eyebrows, and he was saying something.

Arthur shook his head, fell back on politeness once more. “Come again?”

“Couldn’t have you not finding me again. That simply wouldn’t do. If you weren’t, I mean, you look the same, just better teeth, so… We couldn’t have that. No.”

“Merlin,” Arthur frowned, “you should probably shut up now.”

Arthur found himself pressed up against the washing machines with Merlin practically bending him in half backwards as he rushed in for kiss after kiss. Hands scrabbled at hems and there was a small nonverbal argument, but soon Arthur hopped up on top of the machines and leaned down to press back into Merlin, running hands on his shoulders and down the top of his spine beneath the jumper.

Merlin pulled away, still grasping Arthur’s waist with one hand, and pointed at a sign in the upper right corner. In Comic Sans on pink paper, it read: “SNOGGING AND OTHER AMOROUS ACTIVITIES ATOP THE FACILITIES ARE STRICTLY FORBIDDEN”

“And your point is?” Arthur asked, trying to entice Merlin closer by wrapping his legs around the backs of Merlin’s knees.

“I’m just appreciating the irony. Mum made that when Will found out about girls when we were 13.” Merlin curled in towards Arthur, rubbing his hands up and down Arthur’s thighs, but stopped at the tears in his trousers. “Oh no, what’s happened to you?” he asked, tugging open the rips and shushing when Arthur hissed at the fabric pulling from raw, scabbing skin.

“A terrible altercation with the forces of nature happened to me,” Arthur grumbled, trying to coax Merlin’s excellent mouth closer to his own, but then caught himself in a memory. “Oh, lord, Will owns the bed and breakfast across the river, doesn’t he?”

Merlin smiled wide, then, breathing something that could only be described as minty onto Arthur’s scraped knee. “Yes. And this time he’s not going to like you nearly enough to jump in front of anything for you.”

Arthur smirked. “He directed me to you. And gave me a torch.”

“By the way,” Merlin touched the rapidly healing skin on one knee and moved to the other, “it’s a stream, not a river. Practically a brook. It babbles. It’s maybe 4 yards at its widest point.”

“It attacked my suitcase and left no toiletry unharmed.”

“We’ll just have to see what Sunshine General has in stock for you by way of hair product, then.” Merlin had finished healing Arthur’s knees and sealed each one with a kiss, a tiny lick sneaking out each time. He straightened back up and began practically climbing into Arthur’s lap, biting marks high onto his jaw and worrying Arthur’s lower lip.

“Did you always remember?” Arthur asked in gasps between kisses. “Because I didn’t remember, and Jennifer never…”

Merlin took a break from nibbling Arthur’s ears. “Yeah, always. Normally it’s best for nobody else to remember, but with you it’s different. I can’t resist it. Every time I try not to but then you go saying ridiculous, sexy things like how you’re here on business and I’ve lost the battle before it’s begun.” He resumed his ministrations upon Arthur's person with enthusiasm, reaching under his untucked burgundy shirt and mapping the newly familiar contours of Arthur’s torso with exploratory fingers.

Some fine, hazy minutes passed while the rain beat a rhythm on the old roof above. Abruptly, horrible buzzing alarms erupted out of synch all around them. Arthur jolted up off the machines, knocking Merlin halfway to the floor, only catching him under the arm just in time. He absolutely did not screech at all.

“Calm down, it’s only the washing finished.” Merlin laughed, patted Arthur’s shoulder consolingly. “Come on, where’s all that change I gave you?” And he started lumping all of Arthur’s still sodden – but now springtime fresh – clothing into big piles atop the machines.

“You’re going to make me pay?”

Merlin’s eyebrows furrowed as he shot Arthur a pout. “I do still have to make a living, you know. I can’t just…” he waggled his fingers, “…and be suddenly rich.”

“I just figured, extremely long-time friend of the family discount…” Arthur fought the intense urge to swipe a thumb across the side of Merlin’s face and lick into his pouting, self-righteously independent mouth. He appeared to be doing Arthur’s laundry for him, and he was waiting to see how long it would be until Merlin caught himself in the habit.

Arthur leaned back against the folding table and observed as Merlin tutted over the washing. He had piled everything red together and was picking through the darks, when he discovered the bespoke navy suit. Holding it up in front of him with a critical eye, Merlin sighed and shook his head. “So I hope you like felt,” he said.

“What? Oh, bollocks. I thought since I used cold water…”

Merlin let out a hearty laugh at Arthur’s expense. “You think these machines actually do what it says on the dials?” Arthur’s frown grew exponentially. “They’re older than me!” He took in Arthur’s face. “All right, fine. Fine! I hope you’re happy.” And he took a deep breath, mumbled something sibilant, and the suit was unfelted, clean and dry. “That. Was demeaning.”

“So can you do that with all the rest of them, or…” Arthur trailed off, pleased and cocksure.

“I’m charging you extra for the suit,” Merlin declared. “Anyway I have a better idea for spending our time.” He loaded the dryers and fiddled with the knobs, mumbling under his breath in a way Arthur would swear was magic. Arthur dug coins from his wrinkled trouser pocket at Merlin’s behest. He deposited them, CH-THUNK, into the machines. “Still have a thing about scarlet, I see.”

“Is that a problem?” Arthur had always liked red. And it was company colors. Made a good first impression to prospective business associates. Memorable, comfortable, easy to coordinate, it had always seemed like the right choice…

Merlin was giving him the googly smoldering eyes again. “No, you just look nicer in blue. I always thought. Think.” And then he smiled that enormous grin, clearly remembering to whom he was speaking. Arthur responded to Merlin’s sartorial critique by rushing back into him and lifting him bodily against the raucous dryers that were probably shrinking all of his pants, remembering how, if he swept a hand behind to the back of Merlin’s ribs and licked at the juncture of shoulder and neck, he’d gasp hot and wet against Arthur’s ear.

When Merlin laughed and flipped them around so Arthur was tangled between the warm fluff cycle and an even warmer Merlin, Arthur managed a question while Merlin’s greedy hands busied themselves with his ruined trousers. “Don’t suppose I’ll be able to convince you, ah, to leave all these riches behind, and, hmm, move back to the city?”

Merlin peeled back Arthur’s unbuttoned shirt, kissed languidly up towards a nipple and pressed himself against Arthur’s side. “Not in this lifetime, no.” And then, “You probably haven’t got a launderette in London for me to decorate.” He spoke calmly, with no hitch to his voice, despite the fact that he had one hand stroking the length of Arthur’s cock, his own thrusting against Arthur’s hip, working in a unique syncopation.

The room was filled with the sounds of unbalanced dryers, heavy, gasping breaths, and rain falling steadily from above. After a while, the rain stopped.

“Merlin?”

“Mmm?” Merlin was resting heavily against him, practically nodding off. Really, Arthur was the one who had been awake nearly 30 hours. He should be the one having a post-coital nap on a comfy shoulder. Merlin’s shoulder was still kind of pointy. It was entirely unfair.

Arthur poked Merlin in the ribs. “You made it rain so you’d have an excuse to come in here, didn’t you?”

He chuckled, but kept his eyes closed. “The umbrella was a ruse.”

“You also said that my being here on business was sexy.”

“People say things they don’t mean in the heat of the moment,” Merlin said into Arthur’s mouth, bending in for an unhurried kiss.

“I think,” Arthur decided a few moments later, “that it would be best for me to take charge of the newest countryside branch office of Pendergast Conglomerated International. Permanently, and immediately.”

Merlin shrugged. “I suppose the village could use the jobs.”

Arthur glared.

“And the old Thirsty Dragon across the street has been vacant for a while. All it’d need is a good scrub, and I suppose not to be a pub on the inside.”

Arthur squinted.

“And I’d split open the sky and wash away the roads before I’d let you leave without me, of course.”

Ah, yes. That was much more like it.

Merlin dragged Arthur by the hand, magically dried and packed suitcase in tow, away from the little launderette and its fluorescent gleam. He lived upstairs, of course. His sheets were scarlet.


End file.
